


A Beowolf Becomes You

by Freffers



Category: RWBY
Genre: 8 year old wildchild takes down a beowolf, Character Study, Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 09:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8281100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freffers/pseuds/Freffers
Summary: Winter gains her first summon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _"Think to your fallen foes; the ones that forced you to push yourself past who you were and become who you are now."_   
> 

You are afraid.  
  
You are too young for this fate - doe eyes and colt knees and not enough flesh on you to make a meal. But it has chosen you. It will feed.  
  
_You are afraid_.  
  
You wanted so badly to be fearless, running rather than running away, that one word making all the difference. You grinned, bit, wrestled, took off on a hunt for something with no name, something no one promised you in a world that claimed to have promised you everything.  
  
Now you see your selfishness for what it is - immense before you, sketched in chalk and charcoal within a forest of gouache, conspicuously unfinished. A blackened scab, an ink spillage, a glimpse of past-midnight behind the curtains. Later in life you will learn the word _hubris_ , and think back to this day, this feeling, this ghost in your gut given form.  
  
The burning lights of its eyes speak: this is your end.  
  
Youth will not save you. Promises will not save you. Humanity does not belong here, never has, and you, human, shall be torn out.  
  
You, human. But you, animal?  
  
A pause as it evaluates the question (so you believe; you are a child yet and see thought in the unthinking). Claws retract and sharpen. Dagger-ears twitch. It snarls.  
  
That might remain.  
  
You, animal. Is there such a thing? They call you that, sometimes - _you animal_. The word at least is intimate with you. An insult, apparently, but you try to live up to it, tearing down hallways and wriggling free of scolding hands. Always a wish of yours: to cast off the curses of name and family, your taught ignorance of the cages they keep you in. Wishes are just that. You are your father's, and you have already learnt how to shut your eyes, bind your throat and yield.  
  
And yet you are here. No carpets to be tarnished, no china to be broken. Animal or not, you must pretend.  
  
Your breathing is too loud - _shush_. Stay low, stay still. To be animal is to be simple. You catch a glimpse of teeth, stained yellow by the offal of its previous prey, but do not shudder. The beast is large; so is the world.  
  
Quick now, choose. Three choices: fight, flight, play dead.  
  
Play dead. But you were never a threat, and you know well that it does not want you to die. It wants to _kill_ you.  
  
Flight. That suits prey like you, say the shadows of the trees, say the ferns, says the darkness. Run away, run away! they repeat, and it might be a wind that coaxes your feet to give in to them. But you do not want to run away. Only to run.  
  
One choice left.  
  
  
_Fight_.  
  
  
The muddiness of humanity - of language, morality, memory - departs you with the clarity of a gunshot.  
  
You, animal, you, predator, spring not like a deer but a wolf. Training sits indelible in the forgottens of your bones and becomes instinct. Claws out you land, attach yourself like a tumour, grasp easily the bones jutting from that spiked tar-fur. Black, but the red far beneath seeps through in a promise - the very promise you came seeking.  
  
When it roars and shakes you cling on. This promise, unlike all others, will be kept.  
  
You tear at the beast, clumps of hair sticking to your hands and teeth as you go in for your prize. You see nothing, know nothing but the void refusing you - that awful, promised everything. _Again, again, again, again, again_ , furiously trying to rend it all to shreds, consume what would consume you.  
  
There is no maw great enough. You hear it yelping, yes, but not in pain. Your anger is a mere annoyance. And when you finally breach skin--  
  
All black, only black, and you are tossed from the mount.  
  
Caked blood and bitumen come off on your dress as you tumble to the ground, heavy as a corpse. Darkness. Mud and bracken. _Blink_. Something wet on your eyelashes. Nothing of yours.  
  
_Get up_. You are quick, only a little quicker than your mentor, and when it swipes it is your size that saves you. _No more anger; no more of that_. You try to heed it, but you, animal, are much too human.  
  
You stumble - a fern tangle catches your ankle. You did not run away, it reminds you, and there is tithe due. Fingers clench in the snow and pull you free just in time. Jaws meet the space you were. You hear the snap too loud, too close. A lunging muzzle - something that should be like bone but isn't - knocks you feet away.  
  
Vision wavers from hard impact. You are protected from gashes or bruises, but your body insists you are suffering both. Something cold on your head and back - snow, jolted from a branch. Splinters like sawdust on the ground beneath your cheek, unable to embed themselves. You wonder what should have broken, you wonder--  
  
_Stop wondering_.  
  
It is coming. But in a low, stalking prowl, not a bound. Mistake. You are not finished yet.  
  
You start again. Stay low. Stay still. Only a pocket of time granted you. Body rebuilds and recalibrates. Body remembers what you came for. You glance around in neither hope nor despair, being animal, being simple. Look. Map. Identify.  
  
As Grimm closes distance - that most ancient promise to humanity - the knuckles of your hand return to feeling and send an urgent message.  
  
On the ground beside you, a thick spine-thorn. Snapped off by your weight when you were cast from the beast's back. A cudgel, a stake. A weapon.  
  
Your soul meets it as if it were your limb. It becomes full of you and like that the bone is no longer hollow. When you swing, it hits the beast's jaw with a weight and power only aura can provide, yet hardly splinters with the impact. Human art, second-hand.  
  
Something black leaves its mouth. _Swing again_ , hitting from underneath this time, and the black erupts from its snout. _Again, again_ , knocking it back and away from you, every blow dissatisfied and heavy with unfulfilled intent. But it is no longer anger which drives the assault. Your eyes are focused, searching only for that elusive glimpse of your long-denied quarry.  
  
The beast does not tolerate you long. It withdraws - so do you - raises a claw to return your attack, opens its maw to roar loud and wide--  
  
You see it. Luminous without light, a primary colour rent from the universe itself.  
  
Soul swells, lungs scream and into that red sun you _thrust_.  
  
A choked yowl blasts against your face, hot as a dying star. This close, it could bite down and end you there, but doesn't. At the pointed edge of your weapon you feel yourself burst through flesh and know exactly what this is.  
  
You stare into its eyes - burning - but yours are brighter. A thousand sensations wheel within you, wordless, only singing the patterns etched in your soul. They rush as blood rushes, to your ears, your fingertips, the space behind your eyes, and they take the vision of victory before you as their own.  
  
A beowolf becomes you.  
  
  
That impenitent red, so bright it seemed eternal, succumbs as the rest of the corpse does. Black ash falls upwards and you are left alone. You, animal. You, fir, lichen, forest, silence, snow. You; at last - _you_.  
  
  
When they finally arrive, your jailers come to drag you back - their faces fearful, relieved, fearful again; you wonder why - it feels like an intrusion. You do not fight them now. Perhaps because you have what you need. Perhaps because humanity is infectious and your immune system weak.  
  
They mutter and chide and fret and fuss and say "your father" and "your clothes" and "thank heavens, thank heavens". They say you are too young for this fate. They tell you, over and over, that they promised you everything.  
  
You hear it now, in the higher frequencies -  
  
  
They do not tell you what you were promised _to_ in turn.

**Author's Note:**

> _jfc winter_
> 
>  
> 
> I find the Schnee summoning really interesting. When you take away the visual effects and anime factor, it's fundamentally the ability to manifest - and weaponise - psychological change. Winter's Beowolf summon didn't really need a backstory, but I couldn't pass it up.


End file.
